Olympic men’s hockey power rankings: Finland, Sweden heating up at right time

We’re down to the elite eight.

The men’s hockey quarterfinals are lined up for Wednesday at the Winter Games in Italy and there are certainly some tantalizing matchups to soak in. 

Canada will pay its second game of the tournament versus Czechia, the upstart Slovaks will take on Germany, the Swiss and Finns will get after it, and a hockey heavyweight is guaranteed to leave without a medal when Team USA and Sweden square off.

The four top-ranked teams — Canada, the U.S., Slovakia and Finland — have played three times, while Czechia, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden all played their fourth game of the event on Tuesday during the qualification round and will be competing in a back-to-back situation on Wednesday in the quarters.

While everyone has a seed associated with their team based on the preliminary round, that number — in some cases, anyway — may not completely jive with how these countries seem to stack up as the heat cranks up at the Games. 

With that in mind, we wanted to put together an Olympic power ranking on the eve of the quarterfinals. (Team records are win, overtime win, loss, overtime loss).

1. Canada (3-0-0-0, 1^st seed): Nothing has happened so far to knock the country that’s won the past two best-on-best Olympics out of the catbird seat. Certainly there are questions about how the lineup will roll out versus Czechia, with Brad Marchand set to draw in for his first game since the tournament-opening win. Connor McDavid is the leading scorer in Italy with nine points in three games and his linemate, Macklin Celebrini, is not far behind with six. Canada, though, is still searching for the best way to maximize Nathan MacKinnon’s impact — playing wing on a power line with McDavid and Celebrini or finding the most complimentary wingers on his own trio? — and probably needs cerebral defenceman Josh Morrissey — who left the first game with an injury and has not played since — back in the lineup to be at its best.

Still, there’s precious little in the way of serious nitpicks with this club.  

2. Team USA (3-0-0-0, 2^nd seed): The only ding you can really stick with the Americans with is also something that’s completely out of their hands. Based on pre-tournament IIHF world rankings, the U.S. wound up in a group with Germany, Latvia and Denmark, meaning they haven’t yet seen any country that would be considered in the top half-dozen hockey nations in the world. Now, suddenly, they’re facing a Swedish squad that — despite a slow start in Italy — is among the more stacked at the tournament. Still, led by captain Auston Matthews and his three goals, the Yanks have taken care of business. Any notion a goalie other than Connor Hellebuyck would be America’s guy has been put to rest and the Stars and Stripes are in good shape heading into the do-or-die portion of the Olympics. 

3. Finland (2-0-1-0, 4^th seed): Finland, in a surprising result, lost the first game of the event 4-1 to Slovakia. Since then, they beat their rivals from Sweden by the same 4-1 score, then pumped Italy 11-0 to end up with the same plus-11 goal-differential as the U.S. in the preliminary round. Finland has started Juuse Saros in every game, so there’s no doubt who the Lions are riding with the rest of the way. Up front, Finland needs its big boys with loads of NHL playoff experience — Mikko Rantanen, Roope Hintz, Anton Lundell and Sebastian Aho — to really drive the bus. The only guy from that group who has two goals so far is Aho. Still, the Finns have a history of rising to the occasion and certainly have the battle-tested NHLers to do it. 

4. Sweden (3-0-1-0, 7^th seed) Are the Swedes cresting at the right moment? They finished the preliminary round with a win over Slovakia, though not by enough goals to avoid the qualification round. Sweden took care of business against Latvia, opting to go with goalie Jacob Markstrom in the crease after Filip Gustavsson played two of the preliminary-round games. Sweden will need Markstrom — and everybody in Blue and Yellow — to be at their best versus Team USA, but this is a very strong team that could be finding itself at the right time. 

5. Slovakia (2-0-1-0, 3^rd seed) Juraj Slafkovsky has been one of the stories of the tournament, netting three goals and three assists for six points in Slovakia’s three outings. There’s no doubt the Slovaks have a little something going in Italy, even down to scoring a late power-play goal in a loss to Sweden that nailed down top spot in Group B (and a qualification-round bye) based on goal-differential. If they can get past Germany, Slovakia — which won its first-ever Olympic men’s hockey medal with a hugely-celebrated bronze last time out in 2022 — will guarantee itself a chance to play for another hockey medal, this time in a best-on-best event.

6. Switzerland (2-1-1-0, 5^th seed) Losing Kevin Fiala for the tournament hurts a team that, now that we’re really in crunch time, could struggle to score enough goals. That said, Switzerland is a cohesive unit that is getting strong performances from its top guys like Timo Meier (three goals and six points in four games) and captain Roman Josi (two goals and four points). Combine the handful of high-end NHLers on this team with the fact Switzerland — for lack of a better way of putting it — probably gets more from the guys you’ve never heard of on the roster than teams with a similar roster composition and you have the formula for a club that could certainly end somebody’s tournament earlier than anticipated. 

7. Czechia (2-0-1-1, 8^th seed) You could argue Czechia could be last on this list, largely because two players — David Pastrnak and Tomas Hertl — can’t seem to find their best offensive game. Hertl, in fact, is without a point in Italy. That said, Lukas Dostal is the kind of goalie who can steal a game and Martin Necas is doing his best to make up for the lack of production from other NHL stars by netting three goals and seven points in four outings. He’s been awesome for the Czechs. 

8. Germany (2-0-2-0, 6^th seed) Germany may be ranked eighth here, but there is certainly a path to the semis in front of them. Basically, it’s continued excellence from stud forwards Leon Draisaitl (two goals and six points in four games), Tim Stutzle (four goals and six points) and defenceman Moritz Seider (averaging nearly 26 minutes per game), while Philipp Grubauer — who’s having a good NHL season — stands tall in the crease. 

You have to think the Germans can sense a moment here, as they face a beatable opponent in Slovakia with an opportunity to be in the semifinal of a best-on-best tournament up for grabs. 

They’ll be just one of eight hockey countries laying it all on the line Wednesday in Milan. 

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